POLICE hunting a sex attacker have been forced to apologise after they raided the wrong block of flats and left a young mum petrified in her own home.

Stephanie Carey said she and her daughter were “terrified” after being woken in the early hours by the sound of crashing as officers battered down the front door of her Tile Cross flat.

But when a neighbour intervened, officers realised they had not only got the wrong flat, they had also gone to the wrong block.

Miss Carey, who shares the flat with her seven-year-old daughter Shauna, said it was the second time police had called at her flat in Mackadown Lane by mistake.

Now she is waiting for the damaged door to be fully repaired following the incident at 2.30am on October 13.

“I can’t understand how they could make such a mistake, the numbers of the blocks are lit up and can be clearly seen,” said the 26-year-old, who suffers from epilepsy.

“They scared the life out of me and my daughter. She hasn’t been able to sleep properly since. They were banging on the door and I didn’t even get a chance to open it.

“I was panicking because I live on my own with my daughter. A neighbour came to the door and thought I’d had a fit. That’s when they realised they had got the wrong block.

“They really need to stop and think what they are doing.”

Miss Carey said a police officer apologised over the phone when she went to Stechford station.

The force is now writing to Miss Carey to apologise.

A police spokesman said: “Officers made an emergency entrance to a flat in an area where there are a number of blocks of flats to arrest an offender who had allegedly committed a serious sex offence a short time earlier.

“The officers, acting in good faith on information received from a crime victim, quite simply went to what turned out be the wrongly identified block of flats.

“A senior officer has apologised for any distress and advised that this has been recorded as a quality of service complaint against West Midlands Police.”